Josh Adams grabbed two tries and Louis Rees-Zammit rounded off the scoring as Wales claimed a bonus-point 28-21 victory over Japan in the Nations Championship, but there will be much for their coach, Steve Tandy, to ponder after a lacklustre display.
It was a third win in five Tests for Wales, an improvement on the harrowing 18-match losing streak that followed the 2023 World Cup, but in a game that lacked quality in general, the home side struggled at the set-piece in particular.
The prop Archie Griffin also scored tries for Wales, who will bank the win but know bigger tests await when they host New Zealand and Australia in the next two weekends.
South Africa strolled past an injury-hit Italy with a 66-7 win in Saturday’s Nations Championship meeting in Turin, where the fly-half Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu scored the first of nine Springbok tries and added another 21 points from a perfect kicking display.
South Africa ran in six tries in an utterly dominant opening half. Hooker Malcolm Marx went over twice, adding to scores by Feinberg-Mngomezulu, Morne van den Berg and the captain Siya Kolisi and Damian Willemse, with Feinberg-Mngomezulu kicking all six conversions having opened the scoring with a penalty.
Wilco Louw added another try after the break before Italy finally got off the mark with Federico Ruzza’s try converted by Tommaso Allan. Springbok wing Ethan Hooker ran in the final score on the stroke of full-time.
South Africa had claimed maximum points from their three July fixtures to top the Southern Hemisphere group ahead of New Zealand on points difference and they added to that total against Italy ahead of the All Blacks facing Scotland. Reuters
Japan showed energy and tenacity in defence but, especially in the second half, battled to get into the home side’s 22 as scores for the flanker Ben Gunter, lock Warner Dearns and replacement scrum-half Kenta Fukuda kept them in the contest.
